Cyril Robert and Catherine Médard
France
Cyril Robert and Catherine's Wines
- France
- 3 wines
- 2 styles
This brother and sister winemaking team have taken over their family winery to bring you seriously classy Vouvray
Passionate artisan winemakers like Cyril and Catherine are exactly the kind of winemakers we love here at Naked – so boy were we glad to find them!
The brother and sister winemaking team took over their small family winery last year – and it’s been going from strength to strength ever since.
Angel support gave them the backing they needed to help them improve their vineyards and extend the cellars – so they can make more mouth-watering Vouvray for you, at a steal of the price!
Vineyard Location
Cyril Robert and Catherine Médard's Story
Cyril Robert and Catherine Médard's Story
"The Domaine dates back to our grandparents - one side chose to use their land as farmland, the others chose to plant vineyards. Our great grandparents were (as most every 'vigneron') polycultural farmers, with goats, farm crops, some fruit. Alain Robert, our father (who despite being retired still works when needed) founded the Domaine in 1973, starting with a grand total 2 hectares of vines....
Cyril (my brother) joined the estate in 2000 after studying viticulture at the excellent Amboise wine college, while I (Catherine) studied wine business before working with the great Jacky Blot at the Domaine de la Taille aux Loups across the Loire in Montlouis. After 10 years with Jacky, I finally re-joined the family Domaine in 2013, hopefully bringing some ideas on how to really take the Domaine and its wines a step further. Together, we took over the estate from papa Alain in 2014 - though, it's good to see the 'retiree' still knows how to drive a tractor!
We face each day with a big grin! The variety of the work in both vines and cellar really follows the seasons, giving us real contact with nature. We both get a kick out of the act of creation, from planting vines through to pouring our own wine and seeing customers' and friends' enjoyment.
When asked what makes our wines special, we think it is really the attention we bring to running the vineyard itself, all the work we put into keeping the grapes healthy and to get real ripeness at harvest. It's easy to see the improvements in winemaking techniques and equipment over the last years, but it's the way we run the vines that give the wines that edge. It's hard work - long pruning and then rubbing out buds to keep yields low, sowing grass in the vines to prevent erosion and to soak up rain at harvest, and then we raise the height of the foliage, just so we can pluck the leaves from around the bunches in the summer, letting the sun and the wind get to the grapes...
We are truly looking forward to the Angels getting to taste our wines. We hope you'll love them. We think top Vouvray is really versatile... we drink it cold with friends as an apéritif or with supper. It has both complexity and fruit - associating the clear terroir style, with layers of flint in the soft local 'tuf limestone marrying with that Loire microclimate that gives ripeness while retaining a natural balancing freshness. Sometimes we think new world Chenins (Sauvignon too) are picked a little early - unripe - to keep a level of acidity that we get naturally. And the Jours Heureux is a 'cuvée pour le plaisir' - to be enjoyed.
Our favourite vintage so far would have to be 2005.... making a truly great liquoreux... the grapes were really golden with passerillage, shrinking with the sun and wind... maybe we'll make another in 2015! Papa's 1990 was great too - just right for their wedding - but 2005 was for Catherine's first baby's christening.
Angel money could really help us to improve the vineyard and help us to make better wines. Both Cyril and I spent quite a lot of the late summer extending the cellars... cool shelter from the heat, but hard work! Some extra investment would help us further extend these rock-hewn cellars, which has to be good for the wines - and for the Angels! Better still, Cyril wants to update the temperature control system he's recently installed to keep the fermentations nice and cool... the system works well, but adding computer-controlled thermostats would save having to get up at 3 o'clock every morning - which would let the children sleep better too!"
